Artistic areas in Czech Republic

Something that is quite common across all the artistic professions is the requirements for a large rehearsal/studio space at a cheap price. Sadly, artists and musicians aren't exactly drowning in excess cash to be able to splash out on rents. Sometimes, co-operatives are formed to rent out large spaces... and other times, there are disused buildings (often office spaces or factories...) that are sitting abandoned... awaiting redevelopment into some sort of fashionable suburb, pricing the artists and musicians out of the area when the wealthier people want to move into the "trendy" part of town!

Last winter (last year, so not the winter that we are having now...), I had a trip to the Czech Republic... arriving late in the evening in time for a rehearsal, straight from the airport. It was the first time that I had played at this location, but not the first time with the orchestra.

Little did I know that the area was a disused and abandoned factory area... so, when I had arrived in the darkness and stepped out of the taxi. Well, let's just say that I was more than a little bit worried to find myself in a dark (unlit...) area with more than a few alleyways and a rapidly receding rear of the taxi!

Thankfully, the phone coverage still worked, and I was able to call the orchestra manager, who assured me that it was the right place... and that all I had to do was to walk through some unlit alleys and that I would find myself in the right disused building! Yep... this really wasn't the way that I was planning to die....

It really was the place though... and after a few years of the orchestra having leased the space, it had been turned into a relatively decent place to rehearse. The large factory floor had been turned into a large rehearsal space with decent acoustics, and more than adequate heating.... and more than enough space for a Baroque sized orchestra and choir. This sort of space would just be too expensive for an orchestra to constantly be leasing throughout the year in a more reputable part of town...

For this project, it was great that they had good heating... it was a pretty damn hard programme that they had us playing... and the ability to scream around the violin with flexibility and agility is definitely proportional to the temperature of the ambient air! Warmer means faster... colder means cranky musicians and loss of skill!

However, I guess that the owners of the buildings wanted some sort of tenancy to prevent squatting and vandalism... so, it was a marriage of convenience, as they were not likely to be able to find any other business that would be happy having such meager facilities... away from customer traffic as well!

The orchestra also made a bit of a side income stream via the opening of other areas of the factory to artists to use as their creative studios as well. After all, the factory area was huge (and it was only a single building in the complex!)... and the orchestra could only feasibly use a large room for the rehearsal and then a couple of smaller rooms for administration and a tea/coffee room.

This area also served well as a sort of meeting room and lecture area for the patrons of the orchestra... this was where they could meet the musicians and learn more about the programmes that they were supporting.

However, looking immediately outside the rehearsal room... you could see the fast approaching development of the area. This really is the view immediately outside, as the area gets transformed into more favourable (and profitable for the owners...) residential areas. I'm sure that in the year since I was last here... that the old factory building has been demolished and that the orchestra has had to find an alternative solution to the large space/cheap rent problem. Or perhaps they got lucky and the developers found it to be a worthwhile addition to the neighbourhood to have a resident artistic community to preserve the trendiness of the area... the thing that made it possible to charge above average purchase prices for their apartments!(Hahahahaah..... of course not... short term profit above all else is always the order of the day!)

It's pretty sad that this will be gone... but it is quite common for this to happen... there were lots of great things being created here, and I do remember that the administration of the orchestra were getting quite stressed about how to solve this conundrum... I guess the easiest way would have been to delay the development of the buildings outside... but that sort of tactic would have only been mild delay before it got completely illegal!